5.6 Initiative

When combat starts, you can act independently, or you can choose an ally that you can see and hear to lead you. If you act independently, you roll initiative. Initiative is neither an attack nor check. You just roll 1d10 and keep the result. A few special abilities can give you a bonus to your initiative.

If you choose an ally to lead you, you use the result of their initiative check instead of rolling yourself. Either way, this determines your initiative result.

Initiative order proceeds from the highest initiative result to the lowest. If two creatures have the same initiative result, the higher initiative modifier wins. If they are still tied, they independently roll initiative against each other to determine who acts first.

If you lead your allies during initiative, you must clearly and obviously communicate with them. This generally requires motion and noise which make your presence known to enemies. A difficulty value 5 Awareness check is enough to recognize your presence and identify that you are acting as a leader. Similarly, you can identify the leader in enemy groups with a DV 5 Awareness check.

5.6.1 Initiative Groups

Once everyone in a combat has determined their initiative order, allies with no enemies between them in the initiative order are bundled into initiative groups. Each initiative group gets a single shared turn. Within that turn, each creature in the initiative group can take actions in any order.

Once you have started an action, you must complete it before any creature in the initiative group can take another action. As a special case, you can use free actions and minor actions during the resolution of your own move actions. For example, you can walk up to a door, open it, and continue through the door (see Manipulating Objects). However, you can’t move up to a creature, use a standard action to attack it, and move away with the same move action.

After all creatures in an initiative group taken all of their intended actions, the next initiative group can act. Since your whole initiative group shares a turn, effects that last "until the end of your turn" last until the end of your full initiative group’s turn, regardless of when you take your actions during that turn.

5.6.2 Initiative Example

Alice, Bob, Carol, and Dave are player characters in an adventuring party. They come across a group of goblins led by a troll. Alice and Dave decide to act independently, while Bob declares Carol as his leader. The goblins all declare the troll as their leader.

When initiative is rolled, Alice rolls an 4, Dave rolls a 6, the goblin shaman rolls a 7, and Carol rolls a 9. Bob and the individual goblins don’t roll initiative, since they designated leaders. Alice and Dave are grouped together, since there are no enemies between them. There are three turns in the final combat order:

1.

Bob and Carol

2.

The troll and goblins

3.

Alice and Dave

5.6.3 Deciding Action Order

Try not to spend too much time on the exact order of everyone’s actions within your initiative group. Most of the time, the exact order doesn’t matter. It’s generally fine to just start rolling dice if you already know what you’re going to do, and just act in the order that people decide their actions. The GM can help resolve situations where this is ambiguous.

5.6.4 Delaying Your Turn

You can freely delay your turn in a round to join a later initiative group. However, you can’t join in the middle of an enemy initiative group to try to break it up. You can only join allied initiative groups or create a new initiative group after an already existing enemy initiative group.

When you delay your turn, any effects that would have happened at the start or end of your turn still happen at your original initiative order. You can’t extend the duration of brief effects by delaying your turn.